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Grace Augustine
'Dr. Grace Augustine is a xenobotanist in charge of the Avatar Program. She is a legend to the scientific personnel as the author of a comprehensive book of Pandora's plants. She helped Jake Sully on the Avatar program, until she died due to a gunshot wound inflicted by Quaritch. Arriving on Pandora several years before Jake Sully, Dr Augustine was reluctant to accept him on her team due to his lack of training and qualifications for the program, but had no choice. When Sully was lost in the forest, she presumed his avatar dead but later found out that his avatar had been taken in by the Omaticaya Clan. Due to Jake's presence, in successive months relations with the clan improved and Augustine was allowed back into the village, until the Hometree was destroyed. Augustine, Sully, Patel and Spellman escape Hell's Gate in an effort to help the Omaticaya, but not before Quaritch fatally wounds Grace with a well-placed shot. Jake brings her human form to Neytiri and Mo'at at the Tree of Souls, hoping they could transfer her consciousness into her avatar form, but she was rendered too weak by her wounds. Before she died at the foot of the Tree of Souls, she told Jake that she saw Eywa. Grace also makes appearances in the Avatar video game for the Xbox 360 and PC. She is shown at the very beginning of the game greeting Able Ryder, the game's protagonist, as he arrives in a Valkyrie shuttle en route to Hell's Gate, warning him about Pandora's many hazards. Also, if the player allies with the RDA, she is shown at the very end, congratulating Ryder on his victory against the Na'vi through the RDA's seizure of the Tree of Souls. The two aforementioned appearances are the only ones that she makes during the whole course of the game. Biography Arrival to Pandora Grace arrived several years before the avatar team. She explored the plants of Pandora, a moon of the planet Polyphemus, and literally wrote the book on it. She is a living legend in the scientific community, as she is the only person who was able to catalog all the species. Grace also created a school to teach the Na'vi English and their culture until it was shut down. She still keeps pictures of some of her students, one of them being Neytiri, on a cabinet in a camp stationed in the Hallelujah Mountains. Arrival of the New Avatar Drivers Several years later, in 2154, the ISV Venture Star deploys shuttles to Pandora, carrying soldiers, technicians and new additions to the Avatar team. These are Norm Spellman (Anthropologist) and Jake Sully (Stand-in for his late twin brother). Grace is sharp with the newcomers, particularly so with Jake, whom she sees as incompetent and an attempt by the military to hijack her program. She makes it clear that she is displeased and considered Jake's brother - Tom Sully - to have skills far more valuable than those Jake offers. Bringing Jake up-to-speed requires a tremendous amount of effort on her part and that of Dr. Max Patel, the technical support officer. Grace also makes her feelings about RDA administrator Parker Selfridge abundantly clear for the benefit of her team. She not only disagrees with Selfridge's principles and agenda, but also his impatience and methods regarding negotiation or pacification of the native Na'vi. Grace and Jake's first avatar encounter takes place in the outdoor recreation area, shortly after Jake takes control of his avatar for the first time. First Expedition With Avatar Team Grace takes Norm and Jake out on a routine expedition to gather samples of Pandoran plant life. She expresses anxieties about Jake's twitchy and overzealous soldier mentality. It is whilst testing Norm's research and sampling abilities that Jake slips away to examine the area further, leading to a freak encounter with a Hammerhead Titanothere followed by a prowling Thanator. In the ensuing chaos, the Thanator pursues Jake's avatar whilst Grace and Norm manage to escape back to their Samson. Jake is separated from the team when he plunges into a waterfall to escape the Thanator. The team - by Grace's insistence - remain for as long as possible attempting a search and rescue. Although bitterly determined, Grace and the others must concede defeat as night rolls in, forcing them to abandon their search until morning. Grace is convinced Jake won't survive that long. The Three Months and the Destruction of Hometree When Jake wakes up, much to the relief of the avatar team, Grace cannot comprehend it when Jake tells her that he managed to infiltrate the Omaticaya clan, and that Neytiri would be personally mentoring him. From then on, her disposition towards Jake improves steadily, offering advice to him, and showing acts of kindness (being concerned over his eating habits and helping to move him into his bunk when he falls asleep while creating a new video log). She acts almost like a mother to him during his time in the Omaticaya Clan and until she dies. Due to Jake being a member of the clan, she is allowed to re-enter Hometree, much to the delight of some of her former Na'vi students. However, the three months that Quaritch had allocated to Jake soon disappear, and she along with Jake try to convince the Na'vi to flee Hometree unsuccesfully. When the RDA gives them one last chance to convince the natives to relocate, they are labeled as traitors and bound. As Mo'at sees the carnage the RDA wrecks, she pleads to the two to save her people and frees them. As they run for cover, their link pods are deactivated and their Avatar forms tumble lifelessly. While Jake's body is left at the ashes of Hometree, Grace's body is brought to the Tree of Souls. Escape from Hell's Gate and Death After being incarcerated by the RDA, Trudy Chacon and Dr. Max Patel free the avatar team and they head to Trudy's Samson to escape. However, Quaritch is alerted, and without grabbing an Exopack he races out to the hangar and fires an M60 Machine Gun before using his Wasp sidearm. Although the team manages to escape, Grace suffers a major bullet wound and Jake attempts to help her live long enough to reach the Omaticaya clan at the Tree of Souls to seek Mo'at's help. After Jake enters his avatar form and manages to bond with and ride a Toruk to the Tree of Souls, to the amazement of the Na'vi, he seeks their help to rescue Grace. In a trance-like state, the Na'vi and Mo'at pray, hoping that Eywa will permanently transfer Grace's conscousness to her avatar body. Unfortunately, she succumbs to her wound, but before she passes away, Grace tells Jake that she sees Eywa. While Grace's consciousness did not successfully transfer to her avatar, the neural link created when the tendrils of the Tree of Souls interfaced with her human body allowed her full memories to be "downloaded" into the "organic computer" of Pandora's ecosystem. Later, Jake begged Eywa for help in the struggle against the RDA by asking it to access Grace's memories, which would reveal how Earth's ecosystem had been destroyed by humans, a danger which Pandora now faced. Apparently this was successful, as Eywa heard Jake's plea and sent aid to help in the final battle against the RDA. Personality and Traits She appears to be very fond of and close to her Na'vi students, who seem to show the same feelings toward her; this is demonstrated when they take her unconscious Avatar body to the Tree of Souls with them after the destruction of Hometree. As a scientist, Grace Augustine's primary concern is with her work. She demonstrates her dedication to the study of Pandora and the Na'vi early and often; this dedication manifests itself as hostility towards Col. Quaritch and Parker Selfridge, who do not share her enthusiasm. As a result of this hostility, it is considered by many outside the Avatar program that Grace is little more than a lonely scientist, and that she loves plants more than humans. Possibly as an escape from her poor relationship with her colleagues, Grace is a smoker and a moderate drinker.She later shows her warmer side in her concern for Jake's well being. Trivia *There are some foreshadowing lines on the film, for example: **Grace, looking at a display showing the Tree of Souls: "I would die to get samples there." - She does, in fact, die there. **Grace to Quaritch: "What are you going to do, Ranger Rick? Shoot me?" Quaritch: "I can do that." - Quaritch ends up mortally wounding her in the escape. *Grace's smoking and drinking have been one of the criticisms thrown at Avatar by some anti-smoking organizations, who say that she is setting a bad example for young children who might see the film. Quotes "Jake...I'm with her...she's real." '' -'' Grace right before her passing "They are just pissing on us and not even giving us the courtesy of calling it rain." - Grace to Jake upon first meeting "The wealth of this world isn't in the ground." - Grace to Parker Selfridge "For reasons I cannot fathom, the Omaticaya have chosen you." :- Grace to Jake at breakfast. "Just relax and let your mind go blank. It shouldn't be hard for you." :- Grace giving Jake instructions. "So you just figured you come out here, to the most hostile environment known to man, with no training of any kind, and see how it went?" :- Grace talking to Jake. "Well who do you expect, numbnuts?" :- Grace introducing her avatar to Jake. "I've got to take some samples..." :-Grace at the tree of souls, shortly before her death. "Parker, stop! There are families in there, there're children." :- Grace trying to stop Parker's operation. "Don't play with that. You'll go blind." :- Grace talking to Jake examining his queue. "Run, definitely run!" :- Grace shouting to Jake when he sees the Thanator. "Norm, you're contaminating the sample with your saliva..." :- Grace cautioning Norm Spellman while taking samples in Pandora's forests. "'There are many dangers on Pandora, and one of the subtlest is that you may come to love it too much'" References Category:Avatar Category:Characters Category:Human Category:Avatars Category:RDA Category:Deceased